Florida Thursday through Sunday

Since writing my last post, the weather has taken a decidedly unSpring-like turn. It's been gray and cloudy and chilly and rainy. This has basically made me lose my desire to accomplish anything, let alone come up with a new blog post. But in an effort to pull myself out of my crappy-weather-induced slump, I've decided not only to post, but to finish posting about my vacation. I figure I need a little reminder of sunshine and blue skies right about now. (And white sand beaches, for that matter.) So, here it is: The rest of our trip. As you can see, we spent a lot of time at Destin Beach. And why not? It was astoundingly beautiful! It was hard for me to believe, even while digging my swollen little toes into the sand, that I was in Florida and not in some far off exotic local. Not only was the sand white, it was incredibly soft and fine. Imagine really fine sugar. Same color, same texture. The boys played for hours and would have slept at the beach if we'd have let them. Max and Beach Dad even made a sand Alligator!The time inbetween trips to the beach was spent in full armor. For Max, Sam and Curtis, at least. Curtis has an awesome weapon collection and Maxwell was in heaven. Since Max got to sleep in the toy room, he was in full armor each morning to greet us. They played Knight-in-Shining-Armor and Pirate alternately. Much emphasis was placed on costume and fancy footwork. Like I said: Heaven! On Saturday we did a few different fun things since Joe wasn't at work and could come with us. First stop was the Eglin Airforce Base Airplane Museum. The bomb below is called "The FAE bomb". Since my mom's name is Fae, and she is most definitely "the Bomb" I thought this was extremely cool.
After the museum, it was time for a special lunch at "Fudpuckers". (Try saying that ten times fast. But not in front of your kids.) The extremely cool thing about Fudpuckers is, surprisingly, not that the name can make you swear, it is that they have a whole pond full of alligators right on sight. You can even attempt to feed the alligators if you spend $3 on a little bag of wannabe meat (the color and texture of a Pink Pearl eraser). You won't have any success, (what sane alligator wants to eat an eraser?) but you may have fun trying to bonk them on the head with the bait. Lunch was great despite our inability to induce a feeding frenzy.
Who knew even MORE fun was to be had in the parking lot!?! As you may recall from this post, Max has three goals in life. Or rather, one goal to acquire three different things. They are all vehicles and he's saving change and birthday dollars in his Pooh-Bear bank for them. They are: A motorcycle, a convertible, and a stretch limousine. (Pronounced "stwehch li-ni-ma-za-neen") Anyway, parked next to us when we were headed to the car was a man just about to leave on his motorcycle. Max walked right up to him and matter-of-factly said "I want a motocycle when I get big!" The driver was evidently impressed and asked if he'd like to climb up for a minute. Max did, and then proceeded to rev the engine very loudly and frighteningly. (Frightening to a reformed-speeder mother with a little boy who really wants a motorcycle when he grows up.) Very nice guy. Very cool for Max.

Of course, our next stop was the beach to play for the last time.

BUT, not the beach you see below. Now we're on to Sunday. Sunday, of course, we went to church. After church we needed something reverent and solemn to do. So we went to another beach. Okay, not really, we actually took a drive to Seaside. This is the extremely perfect town where "The Truman Show" (with Jim Carrey) was filmed.

We walked around a little, but this is as far onto the beach as the boys got before being reined back onto the more righteous sidewalk. It is a BEAUTIFUL and quaint little town and it was really fun to check it out. My only regret was that we couldn't buy ice cream.
Monday morning, we reluctantly started our trek back to Orlando and from there, to Providence. All in all, it was a perfect, PERFECT trip. Thanks to my dad for helping with the first two nights, and then mostly to Angelique and her wonderful husband for pampering us the rest of the trip. It was hard to come home. And we still miss it.

I'm not sure all this reminiscing has improved my mood. Now I have to get back to reality (my unattended children upstairs) and the cold weather.

Thank goodness for vacations!!!!